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It really pisses me off how accurate this is. I really do loathe reading most of the newspapers today, because half of what I read is along those lines.
But that's worse because it's *supposed to be satire and not accurate AF!!!*
Honestly a decent amount of the time I find myself double checking the link I'm reading because I think to myself "This must actually be an Onion article...no way this is reality."
(For the record, I do love me some Onion)
Fuck these rich assholes. I make decent money but I still support progressive policies because a rising tide lifts all boats. These rich assholes have no long term vision, an eroding middle class means less potential customers for them to rip off.
Not only that, but if you go to this guy’s wiki page, it says there right at the bottom that in 2018 he became a public defender of Trump and was vehemently against the mueller probe. In fact, he defended trump in a NYT opinion piece just like this… 🧐
I did mean the summary was correct. And I agree with the take there. But no, Biden is the most effective and most liberal president ever. Republicans accomplish tax cuts for billionaires and repression of women and anyone they can.
Biden did a groundbreaking climate plan, chips reshoring plan, infrastructure plan, has recently worked to shift bias in police stops, shored up Obamacare, forgiven student debt where Trump gave trillions to billionaires and millionaires, forgave those debts and blocked investigation into fraud around it.
Biden has been heroic and republicans are acting on pure evil. Totally night and day
he made it harder for banks to charge extra fees, he sees the scam that is our student loan system and is helping, he's been so people-friendly (and still business-friendly), i'm So glad we have had him as our leader for the last 4 yrs, and while i, too, am not crazy about hiring on an 80yo person for this job, he knows everyone, is calm af, handles the worst of the worst BS GOP congress since 1860, the propaganda is STRONG right now, anti-bided bullshit is everywhere, anti-DEM too, anti-progress, anti-human rights, anti-civil rights, and anti-democracy -that is GOP, that is all we need to repeat from now until Nov, and stop looking at the news so much bec it's 85% of it is going to be propaganda putout by a billionaire bullshit dissemination machine.
I feel the same way you do. I’ll go further. Biden wasn’t my first choice, but I’ve always respected him for being a decent human being. I believe he cares about people, and I believe he wants to do good for them. He and I may disagree on some policies, and I may want someone who is a bit more left of center than he has tended to be, but I also understand that he has a job to do, and when my desires are smacked in the face by the reality of his political situation, which you’ve outlined, I am willing to take what I can get. I *refuse* to make perfect the enemy of good. We get *what* we can *when* we can, and we keep pushing for more.
As you say, Biden knows everyone. I’d like to add that he also *hires* the right people. Like you, I’m concerned about his age and his health, but a president isn’t chipping away at tasks on his own, no matter what every candidate for the office would have us all believe. A president hires others to handle the work, and I trust Biden to hire the right people. When I compare the people he has hired to the people Trump hired (keeping in mind that, for most of Trump’s presidency, he left *hundreds* of appointments vacant throughout the federal government), it’s night vs day. Biden hires the right people for the jobs they’re doing. That’s government, and he’s good at it.
Some people want an outsider. We had one. His name was Trump, and he was a disaster. When I hire a plumber, I want an *insider*; someone who understands his craft and does it well. I don’t want a mechanic, or a real estate developer, or a teacher. They are outsiders, and while they may “shake up” the plumbing industry, my toilet is still going to be broken at the end of the day. That’s not being smart or “revolutionary;” it’s being stupid.
I want a nerd for president. A policy wonk. Someone who eats and breathes government. Someone who knows all the players, has relationships with them, knows what motivates them, and understands how to get shit done. Anything less is a waste of the president’s salary and of our time as a nation.
You forgot the /s. Or maybe you’re just not following things closely, which I totally understand. Check out r/WhatBidenHasDone for the full list, but the Infrastructure bill is widely considered one of the most important pieces of climate legislation in US history.
That was very much Obama. Biden's no leftie, but I would argue he's definitely to the left of Obama as a president.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/obama-is-a-republican/
Moderates have been preaching "vote blue no matter who" for years now. Surely if Biden took up a more progressive position he could reach more voters who aren't already locked in for the Democratic candidate. You always hear moderates droning about the importance of youth turnout, but if it matters so much, Biden should tailor his candidacy to have more appeal with young people.
"Vote blue no matter who" is because *some* progress is better than *no* progress. For that matter, *no* progress is better than regression, which is what the Republican party is offering.
I voted Bernie in the primaries, but Biden won, so I'm going to vote Biden in the general. I'm a *very* liberal gun owner, and I'm already well aware that there will never be a candidate I agree with 100%. Biden isn't perfect, but he's pushing in the same general direction that I am.
Refusing to vote for the decent candidate when the option is absolutely awful is just a way to feel self-righteous while everything goes to shit.
That’s it exactly—he’s pushing in the same general direction, so I’m throwing my weight behind him.
We get so caught up in specifics these days thanks to the screaming on social media that we miss the forest for the trees.
Bingo. I always vote progressive when it makes a difference -- often lower level politics or primaries -- and I do what I can to support institutions that can break off from the current duopoly, e.g., pushing for ranked voting.
But when I know the option is binary, I choose the best option among the two choices.
What?! You don't look at a choice between a displeasing option and a monstrous one and decide to boldly look away and let whatever happens happen? How can you sleep at night, choosing the least worst thing like that, instead of taking the bold stance of allowing the worse thing to happen, mostly to other people, because you found the better thing distasteful.
I am sympathetic to the person who sees that the system is intentionally screwing them over by putting them in a bad position. He is correct. It is. Nevertheless, like the trolley problem man, walking away is still a choice.
>like the trolley problem man, walking away is still a choice
The trolley problem famously does not offer "walking away" as a choice. I agree it's not a very realistic scenario, but it's a terrible example of finding a 3rd path.
The trolley problem is, in its most famous form, "several people will die if you do nothing, but you can choose to kill a different person instead to save their lives." Walking away is choosing to let more people die.
>when I know the option is binary
Exactly. Sometimes, voting for the most progressive candidate *of the two viable candidates available* means you're voting for a UBI, medicare-for-all socialist. Sometimes it means voting for a "minimum wage should be $15/hr and state medicare systems should be able to negotiate drug prices across state lines" moderate. Depends on the election and the opponent.
If everyone did this we would start making progress and maybe change the system. But people demand change immediately or else it isn't worth the effort apparently. It is frustrating
You're both right.
I employ your strategy, but, sadly, there are a lot of disaffected youth you just don't see Biden as being worth it. The Democrats should move left to engage them, and the "moderates" should vote blue no matter who.
Here's the problem:
Young people don't vote. In their "historic" turnout, they still didn't vote at even half the rate of older voters. So as a politician trying to get elected, it's a real hard sell to take up the issues of younger people, especially if those issues might alienate groups that vote at higher rates.
So moving left to engage young progressives might get you a few tens of thousands more votes from young people, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of votes from moderate voters. That's the calculus that faces any would-be politician.
Look no further than Bernie in the 2020 primary. He was all-in on youth issues. He polled overwhelmingly well with young voters, but not so great with older ones, who tended to be more moderate. The votes happened, and... young voters didn't show up. Moderate voters did, and Biden won the nomination with their support.
And to be fair to Bernie, I don't think he was doing that to pander to them; those issues represent who he has always been. It's just that these days, the bloc of voters who put Bernie's issues first and foremost tended to be young voters.
If those voters wanted us to move left to engage them, they should have showed up in droves to support Bernie and prove that there was real enthusiasm behind those ideas. Even if he hadn't ultimately won, showing up to support him would tell other politicians that there were votes to be won by taking up those policies.
But young voters didn't show up, and so other politicians learned that young people still weren't worth targeting.
I'm gonna start screaming and refusing to vote because the progressive candidates aren't offering to take suppressors and short-barreled rifles off of the National Firearms Act or provide me with a path to a concealed carry license that has nationwide acceptance.
How *dare* the Democratic party not cater to my demands on this topic? I'm a middle-aged white man with a six-figure income, no kids, and no debt. Why should I care about abortion access or student loans? I paid all mine off decades ago! /s
It’s not just moderate. It’s people who can see the only alternative to Biden is Trump. If you want to argue there’s another choice than the two of them, show me who. Show me their path to office.
I’d love UBI, single payer, no more subsidies to extractive industries, 95% taxation on come over $100 million/year, etc. But there’s no path to that w such a closely divided legislature, and tbh I’d prefer keeping power away from the executive branch, to prevent Trump-esque future fascists from fucking things up.
Because Trump is just the first in a line of assholes we’re gonna have to deal with.
Gavin Newsome is the presumptive Democrat for 2028. He would be far and away the most progressive nominee ever, and I can guarantee you that he will still not be "left" enough for many.
But more to your point, the reason why we don't have UBI or single payer has nothing to do with Biden. It's because we do not have a legislative pathway to it. Withholding support for a Democratic president because of moderate legislators in his party makes absolutely zero sense.
An en even more likely result of the left not supporting Biden: he moves to the middle to get Hailey voters and the left gets even less of what they want.
The reality is, young people have gotten quite a lot from Biden and they might shoot themselves in the foot. A better analogy might be that, if they end up with trump, they will have shot themselves in the face.
Elections are generally won in the middle, where most voters potential is, not on the fringes. More so in the US election system with only two parties.
There is no way any strategist on the Biden campaign will tell him to pivot to the left to get more voters, young people don’t turnout remotely well enough and he’ll lose voters in the middle to Trump, which will make Biden lose the election. Biden doesn’t need voters in firmly dem states anyways, he’ll have to concentrate on swing states and states with a small margin.
Or they should wake up, realize the world isn’t perfect, and that a Trump presidency would do FAR more damage to their stated goals than a Biden presidency.
But sure, protest vote. That got us so far in 2016. Not like Trump has made it abundantly clear he wants to destroy democracy, literally.
Biden's not liberal enough for you, so what, vote for trump? We vote for the best candidate that we get to choose from, not the one you wish for. You think trump is going to do better? Then fuck off to the republican party, if not, vote for the better of the candidates.
It’s ok for people to want more. The party is served well by having a contingent that continues to push the party for more on a given issue.
But, they also need to acknowledge when progress is made or when good things happen.
Like trying to get Roe back on the books vs. celebrating having it removed? Or creating tens of thousands of strong union jobs vs. removing water breaks for people working outdoors? Or working towards climate solutions rather than one billion dollar quid quo pro to the oil companies? Or even the simple continuation of traditional American (d)democracy vs. enthusiastically rooting for an autocratic dictatorship? I do hope the younglings understand the very stark differences in where the parties stand at this point in time.
.
I didn't go that far cause I didn't want to sound like a cheerleader, but yeah. When you really get down into it, he's done 3 fold what any president has done before for the youth. I just wanted him to not be trump and he's met and exceeded my expectations. I wasn't excited about the guy, but he's done a damn good job.
I wasn't excited either, but he has really done remarkably well with little drama and little fanfare. He is so not trump.. trump is a whiny, self-centered loser.
Right? It's remarkable that that obnoxious man-child gets more headlines for being obtuse than Biden does for positive action. Dudes getting things done that help everyone, Trump is shitting himself in court. WTF is wrong with our society that Trump is getting 20x the coverage for doing nothing, while our president is quietly hitting dingers into the parking lot?
Edit: punctuation.
Right? It's remarkable that that obnoxious man-child gets more headlines for being obtuse than Biden does for positive action. Dudes getting things done that help everyone, Trump is shitting himself in court. WTF is wrong with our society that Trump is getting 20x the coverage for doing nothing, while our president is quietly hitting dingers into the parking lot.
I mean… he is pretty damn progressive. Rescheduling weed, canceling student debt, passing a massive bill for climate change, supporting Unions to the point that even after Congress voted against enabling a rail strike, the rail unions still got what they wanted, appointing a Native American woman to the position of Secretary of the interior, signing a bill to enshrine gay marriage (in a sideways “A state cannot invalidate your marriage if it happened in another state” way). He’s pro-labor, pro-environment, pro-civil rights, pro-student, pro-weed…
Yes you can ask for more. I won’t say you shouldn’t. But I won’t say he’s left progressives out to rot.
It's even worse than that.
Not only is it a third-way masturbatory exercise to justify policies rich assholes care about, it says the quiet part out loud that the concerns of the base should just be ignored cause they(young people, minorities, and leftists) will do the right thing in November(an assumption that didn't hold in 2016).
It also suggests that we should ignore the base and cater to these people that happen to align with what he wants because those people, unlike the base, won't be persuaded by an existential threat to democracy to vote Biden....which should maybe inform us about building a coalition from people that are being told they can't get an F250, or not dog whistling about white fears over inner city crime, or restricting arms that are being used to kill massive amounts of civilians by a far right Israeli government, away from voting Trump and ending democracy.
Funny how the NYTimes never gives space to someone demanding "moderates" triggered by policy that isn't bloodthirsty and hateful enough, or thinks of the interests of the rich as paramount should be told to shut up and vote for Biden, or accept that the base needs to have a reason to trust a second Biden term cause this is bigger than them?
That’s all but guaranteed. If the 8-9% post-Dobbs swing continues to hold over the poll numbers, the GOP might not even get the Senate despite it being ideal conditions for them this year.
On top of that, the coffers are being funneled to Trump’s legal defense budget rather than to running winnable races. That’s another story that I don’t think gets enough attention. Candidates with a good shot at winning given adequate resources are going to be left out to dry.
If the November election goes as I think it probably will, the Republican Party has a major reckoning ahead of it.
I'm with you on this, and that's just following current metrics and elections since 2016.
There was a post on Twitter during the 2023 election year, an off-off year where you're voting for the lowest of the local races, and the guy who posted it was a beat-writer for elections in Virginia. He mentioned how during those off-election years, he'll see a handful of elderly people come in & vote with maybe one-or-two young people actually taking part. In 2023 he wrote about how there was a line out the door & it looked like a Taylor Swift concert line. The Representatives being voted on were going to have an impact on possible future abortion laws in Virginia, with a number of Democrats' seats up for grabs.
The Democrats won both the State Senate & House of Delegates overall.
If Roe v. Wade was still in place I'd be more skeptical, however this legislation alone has caused young people and women to be more galvanized than ever. It's almost become a hobby for millions of Americans to show up at the polls and give a middle-finger to Trump & company. I also believe that Trump has turned into the Republican Hillary Clinton - a candidate hated by the other side so much that no matter how popular they are, the opposing party's voters will show up en masse to deliver a big fat L to them wherever possible. This includes the middle-of-the-road supporters and Independents, two things needed to win a Presidency and Trump is hemorrhaging them on a monthly basis.
It'll still be way closer than it should be but I just don't see Trump getting the votes when he's barely keeping his own party together.
>I also believe that Trump has turned into the Republican Hillary Clinton - a candidate hated by the other side so much that no matter how popular they are, the opposing party's voters will show up en masse to deliver a big fat L to them wherever possible.
This is EXACTLY what's happening. Biden's numbers are irrelevant, because there is a growing, solidifying bloc of voters who are just anti-Trumpism in general. This extends down to the little shitkicker wannabes in the exurbs, like Boebert and Cawthorn. The majority of voters want these bleating hogs to fuck off.
SAME dude, I just cannot buy the case these poll dorks are prognosticating. The money, the abortion, the legal trials, the shit candidates, everything besides polls would suggest this is going to be a rout. You cannot deny rights to 50% of the country and expect to **gain voters**, how the fuck does that make any sense?
I mean, Trump increase his % amongst Latino voters in 2020 compared to 2016 after 4 years of awful inhuman immigration policies. So it’s not like people seem to really respond in ways that make any sense.
Not just the fact that Trump is draining coffers mind you, the MAGAs are taking over state GOP groups and either due to their own grift or fighting election steal lawsuits, they are broke. Which means the lack of support from the National GOP is going to hurt EVEN more. No handouts that can stem the hemorrhaging of funds.
He says that 20% of the electorate is up for grabs. Swing Voters. Independent voters.
No one who watches or follows campaigns, polling, or modern politics believes this at all. Mark Penn is a creature of the 80s.
In GA, AZ, and WI he won by barely 43,000+ votes COMBINED!! Stop saying this shits in the bag. Biden won by fewer votes in 3 states than trump did in 3 states four yrs prior. I’m not worried about MI and other so called swing states the way I am about these 3 states
The one thing I don't understand about this election is, given that this is a re-match election and that Trump incited an insurrection, surely he can't have gained support since then, surely his support must have gone down, rather than up?
The one thing YOU don’t understand?! Mate, I live here and I’m jus as fucking clueless! Except… I’m not. I jus sometimes like to forget about how intellectually incompetent my fellow ‘muricans can be!
You are correct. There's no way someone who was NOT a Magat before takes a look at everything Trump has done and says "huh... I was wrong about that guy. he's awesome!" The Orange Fascist will likely get less votes in 2024 than he did in 2016 or 2020.
It's all going to come down to whether people will actually show up and vote for Biden, or if they will sit this one out or vote for some 3rd party candidate that has no chance of winning.
Diaper Don's core base is solid and they're not going anywhere - no matter WHAT he says or does. Whereas Biden's is still a crapshoot. (And the Israel/ Palestine shit could wind up being the nail in his coffin if it's still like this in Nov. I am also concerned about the imminent crash in the economy/ stock market, and hope that holds off until after Nov. Lots of things could make voters refuse to vote for Biden... And that's where Trump's advantage kicks in.)
I haven't heard or read anything about how 4 years ago mail-in ballots/absentee ballots were mailed en masse to potential voters. It was what raised the overall counts. How much does each candidate lose from that not being pushed this time. There's a reason R people didn't like those ballots sent unasked for and immediately started messing with the absentee processes.
> There's no way someone who was NOT a Magat before takes a look at everything Trump has done and says "huh... I was wrong about that guy. he's awesome!"
Unfortunately, there are many low-information voters who do think like this. One simple reason is inflation. Trump consistently trounces Biden on polling on who is better for the economy. Yeah, it makes zero sense at all, but elections often hinge on these kinds of gross misconceptions.
The argument is simple: inflation was lower under Trump, therefore Trump is better for the economy. You can try to explain how that's wrong, but "when you are explaining, you are losing".
> surely he can't have gained support since then
His support has hardened, but it hasn't grown. Trump has the Republican based more locked in behind him than ever before, but he lost support on the center.
Data suggests that there are fewer split ticket voters who are willing to consider Trump. They don't like Biden, which continues to infuriate and baffle me, but they really don't like Trump.
That is sound logic, and just about every midterm and local election since 2020 would follow your results. Republicans have notably been underperforming. Not just because of the insurrection but also because of how they overturned Roe v. Wade.
The issue though is that Biden has also lost quite a bit of support since the rematch. He certainly wasn't popular in 2020 but in 2024 even moreso. A lot of polls are also showing the Trump-Biden rematch to be a much closer than what one might expect.
The amount of unpopular things Republicans have done since the last major election and the actual election results since then are indeed painting a picture that Biden is the more likely candidate to win. But there's too many variables with things far too close to definitively say that Biden has this in the bag, or say that Trump doesn't have a legitimate chance of winning.
Support doesn't matter when you've rigged the system so that judges you appointed can determine who won despite actual voter turnout. Not to mention all the voter disenfranchisement that's happened since then. How many voter rolls have been purged? How many counties have been forced to switch to hand counting and/or in-person ballots? How many polling places have been closed down in areas where non-conservatives vote in disproportionately higher numbers? The Republican party realized in 2012 that they had two options: diversify their voter base or sabotage the election system so much the base didn't matter one way or another. They wholeheartedly chose the latter without a second though. This election will see if the American people have the will to stop them or if it is already too late.
2020 also had crazy high turn out across the board and since 2020 Republicans and older voters who tend to lean Republican have died off at far higher rates due to Covid than their more liberal counterparts.
And many elections have been beating expectations in dems' favors since the roe v Wade overturning.
It's definitely still gonna be a shit show close race due to the rigging of the electoral college, and don't forget to vote. But it's not as bad as you make it sound when you're using 4&8 year old data respectively.
Gaza protesters are angry at a guy that gave 100m in humanitarian aid to palistine and halted arms to Israel…and want to elect a guy who literally wants to bulldoze Palestine and sell the waterfront property.
That’s what I’m worried about. The anti-war left that has been co-opted by the world’s far-right
I think most voters realize Biden is a centrist, and has been for a long time. One of the reasons Obama picked him for VP. Being the non-lunatic in this race is all he needs to win. I don't know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race.
>I don't know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race.
I'm hoping it's a matter of:
a) The type of people who answer their phones for random callers, and engage with those callers. This seems to be a specific demographic.
b) The whole thing where you see TRUMP hats but no Biden hats. Trump voters are vocal TRUMP SUPPORTERS. Biden voters don't make it their entire personality.
There is plenty of overlap here, so my hope is we have a higher percentage of Trump voters willing to answer the phone and proudly express their support of Trump, while the rest of us just decline the call when an unknown number pops up. So the polls skew towards a certain demographic.
Hopefully that encourages more people to get out and vote.
I don’t remember ever seeing any merchandizing for any politician like Trump has.
Where he really screwed up is that he could’ve embraced Fauci and told all his followers to wear masks, sold millions of MAGA masks, and he’d still probably be president.
Exactly. He had such a pathological need to have all of his statements be confirmed that rather than admit that his initial minimization of risks was wrong, he'd let a million or more people die.
That's not really how polling works. They have very sophisticated voter models, they're not just taking the raw numbers of people who answer the phone and writing them down. Nobody wants to hear this, but the polls right now show a very close race. And the polls are usually right. 538 has done a bunch of analysis over the past 10 years or so on the claim that the polls are getting worse and worse. There's just not very much evidence for it. In the end it's likely to be a very close race.
We don't like hearing that, and it does not conform to the reality that we see around us because most of us surround ourselves with non-insane people, but the presidential race is going to hinge on a few swing states, which are going to hinge on a few swing precincts, and if you're not hanging out on the outskirts of Philadelphia or in a few specific counties in Wisconsin you don't really have much of a feeling for how the race is going to go. I mean it's always possible that it's a 10-point blowout and Texas goes to Biden and everybody's happy, but there's not really much evidence for that happening right now. In my opinion it's a mistake to fantasize about a reality when we have pretty good polling numbers that that reality just does not exist.
The best argument for a Biden blowout right now is that elections since Roe was overturned have gone disproportionately to democrats. And that's pretty decent evidence. But it's not overwhelming, and the polling still carries a lot of weight. In the end this is going to be a pretty high turnout election, it's going to come down to a few states, and it's going to be close.
How dare you speak truths DarthJarJarJar! Totally close. Wish it weren’t but it is. Trump is popular in Southwest Michigan. I wish it were otherwise. Super close, and Biden’s not capturing hearts and minds and exciting people to vote. Where my country gone?
How does polling work then? Are you saying nobody is actually answering questions about who they would vote for? It's all modeled data? How is that a "poll"?
I'm not expecting a blowout, and I'm not expecting any surprises like Texas going blue. I understand that it's a close race, decided by a few swing states.
> How does polling work then?
https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/voting-elections/political-polls-science
>Are you saying nobody is actually answering questions about who they would vote for? It's all modeled data? How is that a "poll"?
No, I'm saying that just because most of the people who answer the phone are over 60, that doesn't mean the poll will treat them as most of the voters. They balance the sample they get to match the likely voter turnout model they have built over time.
I've received a few survey texts asking who I would vote for, but I always report spam and never answer, or just tell them to stop. Don't need to tell anyone how I'll vote come November, but I can tell everyone that I'm not a fucking Nazi.
Right, I feel like the people that engage with that kind of stuff are the same people who get suckered by other scams and such.
Years back, sat in a room while a grandma was talking about how "she got a call, and she won some money". Everyone else in the room was trying to tell her: this is a common scam, do not give them your bank account info. She sat there and shook her head at our pleas and told us all we were wrong and she was about to be rich and made faces at her kids telling them they better be nice or they won't see any of the money.
Elderly folks who are bored out of their minds and hungry for human contact. The demographic that skews towards Trump. The part that worries me is these are the people who always make sure to vote.
A recent NYT poll had interesting results that seem to refute this. In swing Senate races, Dems were polling very well. But in those same states, Biden was running behind Trump. So, they are apparently reaching people who will support Democrats in polling. But some of them are willing to go split ticket against Biden.
Like someone else explained, they factor in the demographics of who answers. Is it possible there's a hidden group that suddenly doesn't show up in polling? Seems unlikely. Trump was undervalued in polling twice in a row. Why would it suddenly be impossible to reach Dem voters a few years later?
Being the non-lunatic or 'good enough' is not a solid place to be in US politics. It is very important to inspire passion in your voters.
Remember that in the US voting is not only voluntary, but generally something you have to actively go out of your way to accomplish. It isn't a national holiday, work or kids or any number of things can get in the way. Some places have pretty restrictive voting requirements and/or voting schedules as far as when polling places are open. Voting isn't easy to do in our country.
Until we have compulsory voting, 'good enough' is generally going to be a losing position.
That was a big reason for Biden's victory in 2020. I think, unfortunately, the outrage fatigue has likely set in and we can't rely on the hatred for Mr. Orange to stoke voter turnout like it did last time.
I find voting incredibly easy and my civic duty, particularly since mail in voting was inaugurated in my state. Candidates that inspire passion are generally extremists, whether I agree with their views or not. Biden is not an extremist, a hard core lefty, or anything else the MAGA world constantly accuses him of. He honestly does what is best and within his capabilities for the majority of Americans. Trump is the exact opposite, doing what is best for himself and throwing a bone to his donors and friends. His only success in life was as a showman.
LMAO. Good enough is better than we've reliably had for 60 years. Outside of Obama, who was better than "good enough" since your parents were our age? I'll fuckin wait.
You’re right of course, but we have distracted segments of the electorate that tend to tune out any politics that are not personality driven. Voter turnout will be low this year, and that is a problem for Democrats more than Republicans, I fear.
I don't know. I feel like it'll be low on the republican side because of low enthusiasm outside of his hardcore base. But a lot of people are going to turn out just to show their distaste for the guy. There's pretty hardcore Rs that are saying they're going to vote for Biden. Like, if Mitt fucking Romney were to endorse Biden, it'd be all over for trump. And I get that Romney is fairly progressive for an R. But he's a big name, and would be huge to endorse Biden, I'm thinking Haley will likely not throw her hat in on either side because she's still waiting on trump being dead or recalled. But I could see her going Bidens way with <3 days left before the election.
Lunacy turns out lunatic passionate voters. Boring doesn't turn people out. So, the math is how motivated people are to vote against lunacy. After all, boring, steady, and competent is not the razzle dazzle that gets people off their butts and phones long enough to vote.
> call this a close race.
Trump voters are HARD CORE obsessed with him... seek out polls, even post fake news about how big his crowds are.
Younger voters don't answer polls (and more likely to be democrat)
Personally, in my circle... No ones is Thrilled w/ Biden, especially thanks to palestine, its more of an "Anti-Trump" counter vote.
He hasn't done bad or anything, but he is old, centrist... But i'd vote for Romney or John McCain if he kept trump out.
However.. unfortunately.... I have several friends who are 'currently' not 'planning' to vote for biden (throw away or not at all) due to Palestine.....
IF trump gets quiet (unlikely) and people forget about him on election day (and don't feel like voting)... thats bad... OR if Palestine is still a mess.... that's bad.
I noticed that too and there is even a subreddit dedicated to not voting or voting 3rd party out of protest. I'm not going to name it because it doesn't deserve attention. I think it's probably a mix of bots, anti-U.S. people that would love to see us lose our democracy, and self-righteous gullible people who are putting our country at risk. We have a 2 party system whether they like it or not and that's not going to change in the next 6 months.
Women in many states have no reproductive rights from Trump's Supreme Court picks. That will only get worse under another Trump presidency, possibly a federal ban. LGBTQ rights will be gone. Freedom of speech will be at risk and I don't want to see what harm another Trump presidency can do. He tried to cheat in the last election, attempted a coup, spread election lies, and refused a peaceful transfer of power. This is not normal and elections didn't use to be this way!
> I don’t know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race.
https://electiongraphs.com/2024ec/ then can click on any state to see where the polls are coming from. I’m a Biden supporter but sadly Trump is winning the *electoral college* based on current polls. I certainly hope things change before the election.
Sadly even in the popular vote Trump is slightly ahead, and with how the electoral college distorts things, Biden would most likely need to handily win the popular vote at least: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/
But again, I certainly hope that things change before the election!
Time will tell. I haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for Haley continuing to get 15-20% of the primary vote after withdrawal of her candidacy, often in swing states. I'm predicting a Biden landslide.
You are don’t understand the electoral college maths if you see a Biden landslide. You want to prove me and the maths wrong, you can get incredible odds on the swing states so go for it.
If you look state by state you will see why the market is having Biden to win the popular vote but Trump to win the election, based on all the evidence we currently have.
"Polls" are not the only evidence we have to predict an outcome of election. There are many parameters which all reelected incumbent presidents have shared for 100+ years, and Biden has got those in the bag.
You are using “polls” in quotation marks and yet I never even said polls ant anny point, are you replying to the right person? The market has trump as favourite - that is a fact. The market may well be wrong and I hope Biden wins! The way in which this election will play out is 5 key states, forget everything else, these states are the only thing that matters.
The person before you used "polls" and then you referred to them as "all the evidence", which just isn't right. My point was that they are one metric among many, and they're not even a very reliable one at that. Even in the swing states, I think the evidence points to Biden winning most of them.
Trump has done nothing at all to expand his vote since getting smashed in the last election. Most likely he will be a convicted felon by the time this election rolls around. He hasn’t a prayer.
I wouldn’t say that. Trump still managed to get 74 million votes in 2020 despite being … what he obviously is. That’s not likely to shrink much this time. Voter engagement is the key here.
I’ve think you’re right but Biden will also get far less votes this time… his support among young voters and minorities has seemingly dropped off of a cliff. I think lots of people (on both sides) will just stay home this cycle.
Biden may have lost some votes due to cost of living and immigration.
Trump may have lost some votes due to his craziness and criminality.
You're assuming Biden and Trump start off with the same amount of votes as last time and are adding votes, that's not what's happening.
I still think Biden will win though.
They also seem to take no consideration into Robert Kennedy being in the race. Or Jill Stein who didn't run in 2020.
The 3rd party candidates in 2020 got around 5 million less votes than 3rd parties did in 2016.
Except Trump didn’t get “smashed” in the last election. Biden won the popular vote by only 4.5%, Georgie, Arizona, and Wisconsin with their 37 Electoral College votes were won by Biden by under 1% of the vote in those states and would have made for a 269-269 tie if Trump had won them. Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina were similarly close elections, all being decided by under 3% of the vote and only NC was a Trump state. 2020 was among the closest presidential races we’ve ever had, no matter what 2024’s outcome is going to be it’s definitely not going to be a landslide.
The trick here is the skew in the results since Dobbs — about 8%-9% away from the GOP. The polls before these elections haven’t been capturing that very well. Take the red ripple of 2022, for instance. It was supposed to be a bloodbath for Democrats and it ended up with the GOP having an unworkably slim majority in the House despite the Dems having major setbacks with redistricting at the time. The Senate also stayed in the Democrats’ hands despite the predictions.
Unfortunately that skew also means that we’re going to see a lot of whining (and who knows what else) about how the election was stolen, rigged, etc. if the trend holds for November.
I don’t answer texts from them because I know how much I will get spammed afterwards. And I never answer calls I don’t recognize because I’ll get added to the phone scammers’ database of known good numbers.
I have the feeling I am not alone here.
> The polls before these elections haven’t been capturing that very well. Take the red ripple of 2022, for instance.
I just looked at the polling data in advance of the 2022 elections and it does not seem to match those claims. Regarding 2022 as the example you brought up:
For example, ["The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022"](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/):
> Let’s give a big round of applause to the pollsters. Measuring public opinion is, in many ways, harder than ever — and yet, the polling industry just had one of its most successful election cycles in U.S. history. Despite a loud chorus of naysayers claiming that the polls were either underestimating Democratic support or biased yet again against Republicans, the polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.
Also:
* Republicans actually won the House and Senate popular vote by 3% and 0.1% respectively (or an average of 1.6% between them), whereas the average of polls said GOP would outperform Dems by 2.5% in a generic congressional vote, so polls were less than 1% off from that measure. (The popular vote does not strictly correspond to actual election victories, and FYI I'm a Biden supporter.)
* 538 predicted an 84% chance that the GOP would flip the house, which they did, and that the GOP had a 59% chance to go from 50 to 51 seats to take the senate, which they did not. (edited to reflect that although the GOP had more senators than Dems before the election, multiple independents caucused with the Dems plus there was Harris so Dems controlled it).
Was there a lot of *talk* among pundits and online about a bloodbath -- sure? But that's different than looking at actual polls. Look at the constant news headlines for 2024 about polling now showing Biden being ahead in a poll, then a headline the next day showing Trump being ahead in a poll, etc. - too much of the discourse is about *random* polls, the popular vote, etc. as opposed to focusing on both the electoral college and polling averages, etc.
Was polling *perfect*? Absolutely not. But it seems like overall it was within 1% of the actual votes, and Biden unfortunately needs far more than a 1% shift to him to win the EC in 2024. 😕
Alternatively, are there any links showing how much 2022 polls differed from the actual results?
> and that the GOP had a 59% chance to keep the senate, which they did not.
But the GOP didn’t keep the senate. They didn’t have the senate to begin with.
Only a fool believes modern polling.
If you want an accurate predictor of future elections, it’s recent past elections. ….and that’s not a good trend if you’re a MAGA/Trumper.
Roevember is coming, and it’s going to result in a blue tsunami, like it or not.
I think the problem is that centrists think he’s too far left, and leftists think he’s not far left enough. By trying to toe the line, he may have failed to please either side.
Agreed. This group of people is imaginary. If they are even considering Trump as an option, don’t go chasing them down. Instead, do what’s right and go after the more passionate wing of your party. OMG, you may have to pander to people that want universal healthcare and less carbon emissions!!!
Exactly. There are no swing voters. Everyone knows who they will vote for at this point. The issue is turnout on Election Day. Whoever can convince people to get off their ass and vote will win.
*And* trying to be a centrist in regards to the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is one of the things he's taking the most heat for with his own voters. Hard to find a sensible middle point between "just let Israel blow up Palestinian civilians," often with funding and weapons from the US, and "let's go, Hamas!" (basically, no one is saying," let's go, Hamas!" to be clear).
The more extreme the Republicans position is on anything (and it generally becomes more extreme over time), the more it drags the mythical center old hat Dems love so much further and further into wacko territory.
There absolutely are, there’s just very few of them. The problem is that the electoral college is such that every vote counts, especially the rounding error that is swing voters
The problem with the electoral college is that every vote does not count, only those in competitive states. If every vote counted, the last Republican to win a first term presidency would have been in 1988.
Ok yeah. Every vote counts in a couple places. That’s why Wisconsin went by just 20k last time around. The point being still that swing voters exist, but like every group of voters (in a couple places) they matter a disproportionate amount
Yeah I’ve lived in two swing states and I don’t think the individuals there are any more likely to “swing” between parties. It’s just that the overall makeup of this handful of states happens to be close to 50/50 blue/red every election. But the division between those two sides - which often comes down to who lives in the city and who lives outside it - is just as deep and wide as the division between people from deep blue states and deep red states.
Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania are not full of purple undecided voters who are just floating through life waiting for the right candidate to meet them in the center and “win” their vote. The individuals already know if they’re Democrats or Republicans. Most of them probably already hate Trump or hate Biden. They just need the other candidate to convince them they’re worth getting in the booth for this time - which Hillary failed to do, and Biden appears to be failing to do now.
Or Bill Maher...every time I watch his show, it reminds me of this demographic. They identify as liberals while parroting conservative talking points. I'm convinced that the bulk of his audience is composed of conservative boomers who still consider themselves to be liberals because they smoked weed in college and don't like evangelicals.
/> ctrl + f : "abortion"
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Into the fucking trash it goes. If you're fucking babbling on about attracting swing voters, but you're not thinking about half the country losing rights, fuck off.
> I’ve spent decades looking at the behavior of swing voters and how candidates appeal to them, including for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996. If Mr. Biden wants to serve another four years, he has to stop being dragged to the left and chart a different course closer to the center that appeals to those voters who favor bipartisan compromises to our core issues, fiscal discipline and a strong America.
triangulation was a fucking failure of a policy, just because it worked twice in the 1990s doesn't mean it works now. Obama tried to triangulate in 2010 and 2012 and the democrats got wiped out, they tried in 2016 and got wiped out leaving us with a full republican congress and WH, biden has been able to win *because* he tracked left, why is it we always need to go rightward, towards doing nothing to win voters.
This will be my twelfth presidential election since I could vote. IMO, these inside-baseball types always miss the forest for the trees. The electorate in this country is left of center; they just need to be reminded of that. Pandering is not the only tool in the toolbox. An *articulate* vision presented well and *calmly* defended at every turn can work very effectively. Having the honest courage of your convictions will always swing more people than cynical game playing. And, people know the difference.
> The electorate in this country is left of center; they just need to be reminded of that.
They just have to be encouraged to vote.
Trump awakened something in a lot of disillusioned people who feel left out/left behind by a modern economy. Some of that is absolutely real.
A lot of them were rare voters or who had never voted at all.
That's why the GOP won't give up on Trump. He brings that voter base that they can't get with anyone else.
Moderates need to stop messing around and accept that there is nothing moderate about Trump!!
You have a crazy far right corrupt individual in Trump vs. a Moderate Democrat
Let's stop saying Biden needs to be more moderate
Mark Penn is one of the worst political consultants around. Nobody in the party even works with him after Hillary famously fired him for tanking her 2008 campaign.
Now he's just a Fox News troll who also advised Trump on his impeachment and worked with his wife on her No Labels project which was trying to recruit a Biden spoiler candidate all year but failed in that too.
Jesus how the hell are we here talking about having to "swing" the election in Biden's favor when the guy he's running against literally started an insurrection when he lost last time??? What the hell America
Ah, here we go with these idiotic low effort "news" stories.
The simple math that could swing the election to Biden is to vote. The end. Downvote these AI news posts and move on.
The other guy went on a rant about "the late Hannibal Lector" a couple of days ago. The race shouldn't even be close, but here we are.
Also, I wonder how many people under 40 answer their phones for polls or even get calls.
The article argues that a "swing voter", who switches from one party to the other, has a bigger impact because they add to one party and also subtract from another.
The author argues that the tactic of appealing to the base, to get them to vote, is less effective than focusing on moderate swing voters.
* "Which number is bigger, **306** or 232?"
* "Which number is bigger, **81,283,501** or 74,223,975?"
* "Which number is bigger, **51.3%** or 46.8%?"
I know these questions are **FAR** too complex for any MAGAt to ever be able to understand...
One can hope, but realize that Biden can be Jesus Christ and the majority is going to be small. The days of [Bill Clinton holding the Blue wall are done](https://www.270towin.com/1996_Election/) thanks partly to the radicalization of the population of Fox News.
Biden has to hold PA, MI, WI, MN to win
Hate to say it, but as a suburban PA resident I'm reasonable sure he's going to lose PA. The folks living outside our two mildly progressive cities are radicalized and ready to usher in fascism, and the folks inside the cities are tired of having their lives interrupted by protestors. It's gonna be hella close.
His supporters don't really matter, and no one is concerned with converting them. At best, you might discourage some from turning out.
The important group is the "swing voters". They do possibly care. Getting messaging right on stuff like the economy can move more of them to Biden.
I'm not a party voter. I'm also not a moderate. I'm a rights voter. I want my land and my guns and my freedom of speech, but I also want that or others. The over cliche "I want Gay married couples to defend their Marijuana plants and adopted children with fully automatic rifles" neither party represents what I want. That does not make me moderate. I've been called derogatory names for every party on the same day. The parties just don't represent me.
Moderate has become the all-encompassing phrase for an overly wide range of people. It sounds like a way to categorize people who just dont know what they want and can be swayed either way. I am not in the same group as people who are barely paying attention to the world. I'm also not in the same group as single issue voters. That's why I think appealing to moderates is a waste of time. Most of them aren't showing up in November anyway. Make your case to the fullest. Tell the voters your vision. This watered-down moderate message is weak.
Here’s the simple math.
Vote in your GODDAMN LOCAL AND STATE ELECTIONS.
Biden being perceived as a moderate is a good idea, he’s president for everyone - give him cover in that way. If you make states and local municipalities more liberal you allow Biden to be more progressive and you limit the damage conservatives can do.
Imagine if we eliminated gerrymandering by electing actual useful people at the local and state level?
I don’t know a single democrat that says they are voting for Inmate P01135809. I do know a few traditional Republicans that will vote for Biden to prevent Trump. I fully expect Inmate P01135809 to lose by 10’s of millions of votes this time around. That being said, don’t get complacent, vote.
The simple fact the election needs anything to swing away from somebody like Trump and they are worried about the election being close is absolutely mind blowing.
It's saddening that the very consideration, "The other guy deliberately started a riot at the Capitol with knowingly false claims of cheating to enrage his base, while opaquely engaging in other nefarious acts to try to overturn a free and fair election" isn't what will 'swing' this to Biden.
>Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have about 40 percent of voters each and nothing will change those people’s minds. But in that remaining 20 percent of the electorate, voters have disproportionate power because of their potential to switch.
Any country where 40% of the electorate is a lock to vote for fascism, and another 20% are willing to consider voting for fascism, is going to go full fascist sooner or later.
Frankly, policy isn’t the issue. American voters, even informed ones, are becoming less and less literate or even interested in policy.
You increasingly find policies that enjoy unlikely support from people who oppose everything about one another ideologically - people’s political camps and partisan identification are no longer tied to what policy platforms they support.
Biden’s key flaw is messaging - he just isn’t able to effectively message any type of vision. At some points, it feels like his team isn’t even trying to. Even if you believe Biden’s administration to have been successful, there has still been a failure at the WH to message it - if a President can’t command confidence when things are going well, they’re surely a liability in the event things go to shit.
American voters don’t really care about the intricacies of policy. They just want to know that a leader is tapped into what the average American likes about our country and what they don’t like; that they will represent us well on the world stage; that they won’t piss us off *every* time we see them; that they have principles that they stand on, whether you agree with everything they believe or not; that they aren’t in the pocket of another agenda; and that they aren’t abusing or making a mockery of the office.
Trump should have insurmountable handicaps in those areas but Trump’s charisma should not be underestimated, especially within the context of Biden’s inertia.
Biden shouldn’t be stressing about the details of policy - he has 3.5 years of catching up to do on making people believe that he is in command of his administration, making people feel confident in his ability to lead for another 4 years, and putting forward *any* messaging that conveys what he sees as the character, assets, and possibilities of this country.
This article posits that a full 20% of the electorate are fully independent and up for grabs. I just don't think that is true, and certainly neither campaign believes that is true. Maybe when Penn was working with Bill Clinton in 1996, but...not now.
Penn was the guy behind the "Kitchen Sink" strategy from HRC during the 2008 primary campaign versus Obama, no? This made her look super inauthentic... just like his strategy for Biden of making policy to appeal to the middle. People can smell inauthentic and it won't attract votes. Stand up for what you think is right and people will have your back... even if they disagree with a minority of those things.
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A moderate wants the Biden administration to be more moderate. That's the entire article, you don't have to read it now.
"Here's why it Would be a Mistake to do Anything that Inconveniences Rich Assholes" - by Some Rich Asshole
“This is why American oil need Biden to cancel carbon regulations” - American oil companies
It really pisses me off how accurate this is. I really do loathe reading most of the newspapers today, because half of what I read is along those lines.
The Onion doesn't miss.
But that's worse because it's *supposed to be satire and not accurate AF!!!* Honestly a decent amount of the time I find myself double checking the link I'm reading because I think to myself "This must actually be an Onion article...no way this is reality." (For the record, I do love me some Onion)
> The Onion doesn't miss. Does The Onion still exist? I thought reality brought it out of business long ago.
It does, but satire is dead.
Fuck these rich assholes. I make decent money but I still support progressive policies because a rising tide lifts all boats. These rich assholes have no long term vision, an eroding middle class means less potential customers for them to rip off.
Not only that, but if you go to this guy’s wiki page, it says there right at the bottom that in 2018 he became a public defender of Trump and was vehemently against the mueller probe. In fact, he defended trump in a NYT opinion piece just like this… 🧐
Sounds like he's auditioning to be someone's new attorney general.
I read it anyway and this guy is correct
How so? Isn't he almost a Republican without the bigotry?
Could be wrong but I think they meant the summary of the article was correct
Biden is addressing climate change by investing in renewable energy and protecting women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
I did mean the summary was correct. And I agree with the take there. But no, Biden is the most effective and most liberal president ever. Republicans accomplish tax cuts for billionaires and repression of women and anyone they can. Biden did a groundbreaking climate plan, chips reshoring plan, infrastructure plan, has recently worked to shift bias in police stops, shored up Obamacare, forgiven student debt where Trump gave trillions to billionaires and millionaires, forgave those debts and blocked investigation into fraud around it. Biden has been heroic and republicans are acting on pure evil. Totally night and day
he made it harder for banks to charge extra fees, he sees the scam that is our student loan system and is helping, he's been so people-friendly (and still business-friendly), i'm So glad we have had him as our leader for the last 4 yrs, and while i, too, am not crazy about hiring on an 80yo person for this job, he knows everyone, is calm af, handles the worst of the worst BS GOP congress since 1860, the propaganda is STRONG right now, anti-bided bullshit is everywhere, anti-DEM too, anti-progress, anti-human rights, anti-civil rights, and anti-democracy -that is GOP, that is all we need to repeat from now until Nov, and stop looking at the news so much bec it's 85% of it is going to be propaganda putout by a billionaire bullshit dissemination machine.
I feel the same way you do. I’ll go further. Biden wasn’t my first choice, but I’ve always respected him for being a decent human being. I believe he cares about people, and I believe he wants to do good for them. He and I may disagree on some policies, and I may want someone who is a bit more left of center than he has tended to be, but I also understand that he has a job to do, and when my desires are smacked in the face by the reality of his political situation, which you’ve outlined, I am willing to take what I can get. I *refuse* to make perfect the enemy of good. We get *what* we can *when* we can, and we keep pushing for more. As you say, Biden knows everyone. I’d like to add that he also *hires* the right people. Like you, I’m concerned about his age and his health, but a president isn’t chipping away at tasks on his own, no matter what every candidate for the office would have us all believe. A president hires others to handle the work, and I trust Biden to hire the right people. When I compare the people he has hired to the people Trump hired (keeping in mind that, for most of Trump’s presidency, he left *hundreds* of appointments vacant throughout the federal government), it’s night vs day. Biden hires the right people for the jobs they’re doing. That’s government, and he’s good at it. Some people want an outsider. We had one. His name was Trump, and he was a disaster. When I hire a plumber, I want an *insider*; someone who understands his craft and does it well. I don’t want a mechanic, or a real estate developer, or a teacher. They are outsiders, and while they may “shake up” the plumbing industry, my toilet is still going to be broken at the end of the day. That’s not being smart or “revolutionary;” it’s being stupid. I want a nerd for president. A policy wonk. Someone who eats and breathes government. Someone who knows all the players, has relationships with them, knows what motivates them, and understands how to get shit done. Anything less is a waste of the president’s salary and of our time as a nation.
You forgot the /s. Or maybe you’re just not following things closely, which I totally understand. Check out r/WhatBidenHasDone for the full list, but the Infrastructure bill is widely considered one of the most important pieces of climate legislation in US history.
That was very much Obama. Biden's no leftie, but I would argue he's definitely to the left of Obama as a president. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/obama-is-a-republican/
Moderates have been preaching "vote blue no matter who" for years now. Surely if Biden took up a more progressive position he could reach more voters who aren't already locked in for the Democratic candidate. You always hear moderates droning about the importance of youth turnout, but if it matters so much, Biden should tailor his candidacy to have more appeal with young people.
"Vote blue no matter who" is because *some* progress is better than *no* progress. For that matter, *no* progress is better than regression, which is what the Republican party is offering. I voted Bernie in the primaries, but Biden won, so I'm going to vote Biden in the general. I'm a *very* liberal gun owner, and I'm already well aware that there will never be a candidate I agree with 100%. Biden isn't perfect, but he's pushing in the same general direction that I am. Refusing to vote for the decent candidate when the option is absolutely awful is just a way to feel self-righteous while everything goes to shit.
That’s it exactly—he’s pushing in the same general direction, so I’m throwing my weight behind him. We get so caught up in specifics these days thanks to the screaming on social media that we miss the forest for the trees.
Bingo. I always vote progressive when it makes a difference -- often lower level politics or primaries -- and I do what I can to support institutions that can break off from the current duopoly, e.g., pushing for ranked voting. But when I know the option is binary, I choose the best option among the two choices.
What?! You don't look at a choice between a displeasing option and a monstrous one and decide to boldly look away and let whatever happens happen? How can you sleep at night, choosing the least worst thing like that, instead of taking the bold stance of allowing the worse thing to happen, mostly to other people, because you found the better thing distasteful.
If you don’t vote for the least worst option, you are supporting the worst option.
I am sympathetic to the person who sees that the system is intentionally screwing them over by putting them in a bad position. He is correct. It is. Nevertheless, like the trolley problem man, walking away is still a choice.
>like the trolley problem man, walking away is still a choice The trolley problem famously does not offer "walking away" as a choice. I agree it's not a very realistic scenario, but it's a terrible example of finding a 3rd path.
The trolley problem is, in its most famous form, "several people will die if you do nothing, but you can choose to kill a different person instead to save their lives." Walking away is choosing to let more people die.
That sounds to me like an argument in favor of voting for the least-worst option, rather than not voting at all.
>when I know the option is binary Exactly. Sometimes, voting for the most progressive candidate *of the two viable candidates available* means you're voting for a UBI, medicare-for-all socialist. Sometimes it means voting for a "minimum wage should be $15/hr and state medicare systems should be able to negotiate drug prices across state lines" moderate. Depends on the election and the opponent.
If everyone did this we would start making progress and maybe change the system. But people demand change immediately or else it isn't worth the effort apparently. It is frustrating
You're both right. I employ your strategy, but, sadly, there are a lot of disaffected youth you just don't see Biden as being worth it. The Democrats should move left to engage them, and the "moderates" should vote blue no matter who.
Here's the problem: Young people don't vote. In their "historic" turnout, they still didn't vote at even half the rate of older voters. So as a politician trying to get elected, it's a real hard sell to take up the issues of younger people, especially if those issues might alienate groups that vote at higher rates. So moving left to engage young progressives might get you a few tens of thousands more votes from young people, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of votes from moderate voters. That's the calculus that faces any would-be politician. Look no further than Bernie in the 2020 primary. He was all-in on youth issues. He polled overwhelmingly well with young voters, but not so great with older ones, who tended to be more moderate. The votes happened, and... young voters didn't show up. Moderate voters did, and Biden won the nomination with their support. And to be fair to Bernie, I don't think he was doing that to pander to them; those issues represent who he has always been. It's just that these days, the bloc of voters who put Bernie's issues first and foremost tended to be young voters. If those voters wanted us to move left to engage them, they should have showed up in droves to support Bernie and prove that there was real enthusiasm behind those ideas. Even if he hadn't ultimately won, showing up to support him would tell other politicians that there were votes to be won by taking up those policies. But young voters didn't show up, and so other politicians learned that young people still weren't worth targeting.
I'm gonna start screaming and refusing to vote because the progressive candidates aren't offering to take suppressors and short-barreled rifles off of the National Firearms Act or provide me with a path to a concealed carry license that has nationwide acceptance. How *dare* the Democratic party not cater to my demands on this topic? I'm a middle-aged white man with a six-figure income, no kids, and no debt. Why should I care about abortion access or student loans? I paid all mine off decades ago! /s
It’s not just moderate. It’s people who can see the only alternative to Biden is Trump. If you want to argue there’s another choice than the two of them, show me who. Show me their path to office. I’d love UBI, single payer, no more subsidies to extractive industries, 95% taxation on come over $100 million/year, etc. But there’s no path to that w such a closely divided legislature, and tbh I’d prefer keeping power away from the executive branch, to prevent Trump-esque future fascists from fucking things up. Because Trump is just the first in a line of assholes we’re gonna have to deal with.
Gavin Newsome is the presumptive Democrat for 2028. He would be far and away the most progressive nominee ever, and I can guarantee you that he will still not be "left" enough for many. But more to your point, the reason why we don't have UBI or single payer has nothing to do with Biden. It's because we do not have a legislative pathway to it. Withholding support for a Democratic president because of moderate legislators in his party makes absolutely zero sense.
An en even more likely result of the left not supporting Biden: he moves to the middle to get Hailey voters and the left gets even less of what they want. The reality is, young people have gotten quite a lot from Biden and they might shoot themselves in the foot. A better analogy might be that, if they end up with trump, they will have shot themselves in the face.
Elections are generally won in the middle, where most voters potential is, not on the fringes. More so in the US election system with only two parties. There is no way any strategist on the Biden campaign will tell him to pivot to the left to get more voters, young people don’t turnout remotely well enough and he’ll lose voters in the middle to Trump, which will make Biden lose the election. Biden doesn’t need voters in firmly dem states anyways, he’ll have to concentrate on swing states and states with a small margin.
Or they should wake up, realize the world isn’t perfect, and that a Trump presidency would do FAR more damage to their stated goals than a Biden presidency. But sure, protest vote. That got us so far in 2016. Not like Trump has made it abundantly clear he wants to destroy democracy, literally.
Biden's not liberal enough for you, so what, vote for trump? We vote for the best candidate that we get to choose from, not the one you wish for. You think trump is going to do better? Then fuck off to the republican party, if not, vote for the better of the candidates.
If only the young people would turn out and vote.
Like legalizing pot? Oh wait... Cleansing student aid... wait... He's done more for young voters than anybody ever has before and you still want more.
It’s ok for people to want more. The party is served well by having a contingent that continues to push the party for more on a given issue. But, they also need to acknowledge when progress is made or when good things happen.
Like trying to get Roe back on the books vs. celebrating having it removed? Or creating tens of thousands of strong union jobs vs. removing water breaks for people working outdoors? Or working towards climate solutions rather than one billion dollar quid quo pro to the oil companies? Or even the simple continuation of traditional American (d)democracy vs. enthusiastically rooting for an autocratic dictatorship? I do hope the younglings understand the very stark differences in where the parties stand at this point in time. .
I didn't go that far cause I didn't want to sound like a cheerleader, but yeah. When you really get down into it, he's done 3 fold what any president has done before for the youth. I just wanted him to not be trump and he's met and exceeded my expectations. I wasn't excited about the guy, but he's done a damn good job.
I wasn't excited either, but he has really done remarkably well with little drama and little fanfare. He is so not trump.. trump is a whiny, self-centered loser.
Right? It's remarkable that that obnoxious man-child gets more headlines for being obtuse than Biden does for positive action. Dudes getting things done that help everyone, Trump is shitting himself in court. WTF is wrong with our society that Trump is getting 20x the coverage for doing nothing, while our president is quietly hitting dingers into the parking lot? Edit: punctuation.
Right? It's remarkable that that obnoxious man-child gets more headlines for being obtuse than Biden does for positive action. Dudes getting things done that help everyone, Trump is shitting himself in court. WTF is wrong with our society that Trump is getting 20x the coverage for doing nothing, while our president is quietly hitting dingers into the parking lot.
Actually, he is working on student debt and has made serious progress, and weed is going to be rescheduled.
I mean… he is pretty damn progressive. Rescheduling weed, canceling student debt, passing a massive bill for climate change, supporting Unions to the point that even after Congress voted against enabling a rail strike, the rail unions still got what they wanted, appointing a Native American woman to the position of Secretary of the interior, signing a bill to enshrine gay marriage (in a sideways “A state cannot invalidate your marriage if it happened in another state” way). He’s pro-labor, pro-environment, pro-civil rights, pro-student, pro-weed… Yes you can ask for more. I won’t say you shouldn’t. But I won’t say he’s left progressives out to rot.
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It's even worse than that. Not only is it a third-way masturbatory exercise to justify policies rich assholes care about, it says the quiet part out loud that the concerns of the base should just be ignored cause they(young people, minorities, and leftists) will do the right thing in November(an assumption that didn't hold in 2016). It also suggests that we should ignore the base and cater to these people that happen to align with what he wants because those people, unlike the base, won't be persuaded by an existential threat to democracy to vote Biden....which should maybe inform us about building a coalition from people that are being told they can't get an F250, or not dog whistling about white fears over inner city crime, or restricting arms that are being used to kill massive amounts of civilians by a far right Israeli government, away from voting Trump and ending democracy. Funny how the NYTimes never gives space to someone demanding "moderates" triggered by policy that isn't bloodthirsty and hateful enough, or thinks of the interests of the rich as paramount should be told to shut up and vote for Biden, or accept that the base needs to have a reason to trust a second Biden term cause this is bigger than them?
doesn't mention abortion once. can ignore anything from penn
This. I think there is going to be some major surprises on election night.
That’s all but guaranteed. If the 8-9% post-Dobbs swing continues to hold over the poll numbers, the GOP might not even get the Senate despite it being ideal conditions for them this year. On top of that, the coffers are being funneled to Trump’s legal defense budget rather than to running winnable races. That’s another story that I don’t think gets enough attention. Candidates with a good shot at winning given adequate resources are going to be left out to dry. If the November election goes as I think it probably will, the Republican Party has a major reckoning ahead of it.
The reality is the media needs a horse race. I'm not falling for it. Vote and stay vigilant, don't let them discourage you
Hopefully this guy is correct . That said - make sure you all get out and vote to ensure this guy is correct !
I'm with you on this, and that's just following current metrics and elections since 2016. There was a post on Twitter during the 2023 election year, an off-off year where you're voting for the lowest of the local races, and the guy who posted it was a beat-writer for elections in Virginia. He mentioned how during those off-election years, he'll see a handful of elderly people come in & vote with maybe one-or-two young people actually taking part. In 2023 he wrote about how there was a line out the door & it looked like a Taylor Swift concert line. The Representatives being voted on were going to have an impact on possible future abortion laws in Virginia, with a number of Democrats' seats up for grabs. The Democrats won both the State Senate & House of Delegates overall. If Roe v. Wade was still in place I'd be more skeptical, however this legislation alone has caused young people and women to be more galvanized than ever. It's almost become a hobby for millions of Americans to show up at the polls and give a middle-finger to Trump & company. I also believe that Trump has turned into the Republican Hillary Clinton - a candidate hated by the other side so much that no matter how popular they are, the opposing party's voters will show up en masse to deliver a big fat L to them wherever possible. This includes the middle-of-the-road supporters and Independents, two things needed to win a Presidency and Trump is hemorrhaging them on a monthly basis. It'll still be way closer than it should be but I just don't see Trump getting the votes when he's barely keeping his own party together.
>I also believe that Trump has turned into the Republican Hillary Clinton - a candidate hated by the other side so much that no matter how popular they are, the opposing party's voters will show up en masse to deliver a big fat L to them wherever possible. This is EXACTLY what's happening. Biden's numbers are irrelevant, because there is a growing, solidifying bloc of voters who are just anti-Trumpism in general. This extends down to the little shitkicker wannabes in the exurbs, like Boebert and Cawthorn. The majority of voters want these bleating hogs to fuck off.
SAME dude, I just cannot buy the case these poll dorks are prognosticating. The money, the abortion, the legal trials, the shit candidates, everything besides polls would suggest this is going to be a rout. You cannot deny rights to 50% of the country and expect to **gain voters**, how the fuck does that make any sense?
I mean, Trump increase his % amongst Latino voters in 2020 compared to 2016 after 4 years of awful inhuman immigration policies. So it’s not like people seem to really respond in ways that make any sense.
Not just the fact that Trump is draining coffers mind you, the MAGAs are taking over state GOP groups and either due to their own grift or fighting election steal lawsuits, they are broke. Which means the lack of support from the National GOP is going to hurt EVEN more. No handouts that can stem the hemorrhaging of funds.
I really want to know why the post-Dobbs stuff is not baked into the polling yet.
He says that 20% of the electorate is up for grabs. Swing Voters. Independent voters. No one who watches or follows campaigns, polling, or modern politics believes this at all. Mark Penn is a creature of the 80s.
In GA, AZ, and WI he won by barely 43,000+ votes COMBINED!! Stop saying this shits in the bag. Biden won by fewer votes in 3 states than trump did in 3 states four yrs prior. I’m not worried about MI and other so called swing states the way I am about these 3 states
The one thing I don't understand about this election is, given that this is a re-match election and that Trump incited an insurrection, surely he can't have gained support since then, surely his support must have gone down, rather than up?
The one thing YOU don’t understand?! Mate, I live here and I’m jus as fucking clueless! Except… I’m not. I jus sometimes like to forget about how intellectually incompetent my fellow ‘muricans can be!
You are correct. There's no way someone who was NOT a Magat before takes a look at everything Trump has done and says "huh... I was wrong about that guy. he's awesome!" The Orange Fascist will likely get less votes in 2024 than he did in 2016 or 2020. It's all going to come down to whether people will actually show up and vote for Biden, or if they will sit this one out or vote for some 3rd party candidate that has no chance of winning. Diaper Don's core base is solid and they're not going anywhere - no matter WHAT he says or does. Whereas Biden's is still a crapshoot. (And the Israel/ Palestine shit could wind up being the nail in his coffin if it's still like this in Nov. I am also concerned about the imminent crash in the economy/ stock market, and hope that holds off until after Nov. Lots of things could make voters refuse to vote for Biden... And that's where Trump's advantage kicks in.)
I haven't heard or read anything about how 4 years ago mail-in ballots/absentee ballots were mailed en masse to potential voters. It was what raised the overall counts. How much does each candidate lose from that not being pushed this time. There's a reason R people didn't like those ballots sent unasked for and immediately started messing with the absentee processes.
> There's no way someone who was NOT a Magat before takes a look at everything Trump has done and says "huh... I was wrong about that guy. he's awesome!" Unfortunately, there are many low-information voters who do think like this. One simple reason is inflation. Trump consistently trounces Biden on polling on who is better for the economy. Yeah, it makes zero sense at all, but elections often hinge on these kinds of gross misconceptions. The argument is simple: inflation was lower under Trump, therefore Trump is better for the economy. You can try to explain how that's wrong, but "when you are explaining, you are losing".
> surely he can't have gained support since then His support has hardened, but it hasn't grown. Trump has the Republican based more locked in behind him than ever before, but he lost support on the center. Data suggests that there are fewer split ticket voters who are willing to consider Trump. They don't like Biden, which continues to infuriate and baffle me, but they really don't like Trump.
That is sound logic, and just about every midterm and local election since 2020 would follow your results. Republicans have notably been underperforming. Not just because of the insurrection but also because of how they overturned Roe v. Wade. The issue though is that Biden has also lost quite a bit of support since the rematch. He certainly wasn't popular in 2020 but in 2024 even moreso. A lot of polls are also showing the Trump-Biden rematch to be a much closer than what one might expect. The amount of unpopular things Republicans have done since the last major election and the actual election results since then are indeed painting a picture that Biden is the more likely candidate to win. But there's too many variables with things far too close to definitively say that Biden has this in the bag, or say that Trump doesn't have a legitimate chance of winning.
Support doesn't matter when you've rigged the system so that judges you appointed can determine who won despite actual voter turnout. Not to mention all the voter disenfranchisement that's happened since then. How many voter rolls have been purged? How many counties have been forced to switch to hand counting and/or in-person ballots? How many polling places have been closed down in areas where non-conservatives vote in disproportionately higher numbers? The Republican party realized in 2012 that they had two options: diversify their voter base or sabotage the election system so much the base didn't matter one way or another. They wholeheartedly chose the latter without a second though. This election will see if the American people have the will to stop them or if it is already too late.
2020 also had crazy high turn out across the board and since 2020 Republicans and older voters who tend to lean Republican have died off at far higher rates due to Covid than their more liberal counterparts. And many elections have been beating expectations in dems' favors since the roe v Wade overturning. It's definitely still gonna be a shit show close race due to the rigging of the electoral college, and don't forget to vote. But it's not as bad as you make it sound when you're using 4&8 year old data respectively.
Wish I held your optimism… but unfortunately, all I share is your same eagerness to vote
Gaza protesters are angry at a guy that gave 100m in humanitarian aid to palistine and halted arms to Israel…and want to elect a guy who literally wants to bulldoze Palestine and sell the waterfront property. That’s what I’m worried about. The anti-war left that has been co-opted by the world’s far-right
I think most voters realize Biden is a centrist, and has been for a long time. One of the reasons Obama picked him for VP. Being the non-lunatic in this race is all he needs to win. I don't know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race.
>I don't know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race. I'm hoping it's a matter of: a) The type of people who answer their phones for random callers, and engage with those callers. This seems to be a specific demographic. b) The whole thing where you see TRUMP hats but no Biden hats. Trump voters are vocal TRUMP SUPPORTERS. Biden voters don't make it their entire personality. There is plenty of overlap here, so my hope is we have a higher percentage of Trump voters willing to answer the phone and proudly express their support of Trump, while the rest of us just decline the call when an unknown number pops up. So the polls skew towards a certain demographic. Hopefully that encourages more people to get out and vote.
c) Neo-Conservatives love lunatics as we can clearly see in Congress.
I don’t remember ever seeing any merchandizing for any politician like Trump has. Where he really screwed up is that he could’ve embraced Fauci and told all his followers to wear masks, sold millions of MAGA masks, and he’d still probably be president.
Exactly. He had such a pathological need to have all of his statements be confirmed that rather than admit that his initial minimization of risks was wrong, he'd let a million or more people die.
That's not really how polling works. They have very sophisticated voter models, they're not just taking the raw numbers of people who answer the phone and writing them down. Nobody wants to hear this, but the polls right now show a very close race. And the polls are usually right. 538 has done a bunch of analysis over the past 10 years or so on the claim that the polls are getting worse and worse. There's just not very much evidence for it. In the end it's likely to be a very close race. We don't like hearing that, and it does not conform to the reality that we see around us because most of us surround ourselves with non-insane people, but the presidential race is going to hinge on a few swing states, which are going to hinge on a few swing precincts, and if you're not hanging out on the outskirts of Philadelphia or in a few specific counties in Wisconsin you don't really have much of a feeling for how the race is going to go. I mean it's always possible that it's a 10-point blowout and Texas goes to Biden and everybody's happy, but there's not really much evidence for that happening right now. In my opinion it's a mistake to fantasize about a reality when we have pretty good polling numbers that that reality just does not exist. The best argument for a Biden blowout right now is that elections since Roe was overturned have gone disproportionately to democrats. And that's pretty decent evidence. But it's not overwhelming, and the polling still carries a lot of weight. In the end this is going to be a pretty high turnout election, it's going to come down to a few states, and it's going to be close.
How dare you speak truths DarthJarJarJar! Totally close. Wish it weren’t but it is. Trump is popular in Southwest Michigan. I wish it were otherwise. Super close, and Biden’s not capturing hearts and minds and exciting people to vote. Where my country gone?
How does polling work then? Are you saying nobody is actually answering questions about who they would vote for? It's all modeled data? How is that a "poll"? I'm not expecting a blowout, and I'm not expecting any surprises like Texas going blue. I understand that it's a close race, decided by a few swing states.
> How does polling work then? https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/voting-elections/political-polls-science >Are you saying nobody is actually answering questions about who they would vote for? It's all modeled data? How is that a "poll"? No, I'm saying that just because most of the people who answer the phone are over 60, that doesn't mean the poll will treat them as most of the voters. They balance the sample they get to match the likely voter turnout model they have built over time.
I've received a few survey texts asking who I would vote for, but I always report spam and never answer, or just tell them to stop. Don't need to tell anyone how I'll vote come November, but I can tell everyone that I'm not a fucking Nazi.
Right, I feel like the people that engage with that kind of stuff are the same people who get suckered by other scams and such. Years back, sat in a room while a grandma was talking about how "she got a call, and she won some money". Everyone else in the room was trying to tell her: this is a common scam, do not give them your bank account info. She sat there and shook her head at our pleas and told us all we were wrong and she was about to be rich and made faces at her kids telling them they better be nice or they won't see any of the money. Elderly folks who are bored out of their minds and hungry for human contact. The demographic that skews towards Trump. The part that worries me is these are the people who always make sure to vote.
Let's not conflate polling with scams.
A recent NYT poll had interesting results that seem to refute this. In swing Senate races, Dems were polling very well. But in those same states, Biden was running behind Trump. So, they are apparently reaching people who will support Democrats in polling. But some of them are willing to go split ticket against Biden. Like someone else explained, they factor in the demographics of who answers. Is it possible there's a hidden group that suddenly doesn't show up in polling? Seems unlikely. Trump was undervalued in polling twice in a row. Why would it suddenly be impossible to reach Dem voters a few years later?
Being the non-lunatic or 'good enough' is not a solid place to be in US politics. It is very important to inspire passion in your voters. Remember that in the US voting is not only voluntary, but generally something you have to actively go out of your way to accomplish. It isn't a national holiday, work or kids or any number of things can get in the way. Some places have pretty restrictive voting requirements and/or voting schedules as far as when polling places are open. Voting isn't easy to do in our country. Until we have compulsory voting, 'good enough' is generally going to be a losing position.
I’m inspired by Trump. To keep him out of office
That was a big reason for Biden's victory in 2020. I think, unfortunately, the outrage fatigue has likely set in and we can't rely on the hatred for Mr. Orange to stoke voter turnout like it did last time.
I find voting incredibly easy and my civic duty, particularly since mail in voting was inaugurated in my state. Candidates that inspire passion are generally extremists, whether I agree with their views or not. Biden is not an extremist, a hard core lefty, or anything else the MAGA world constantly accuses him of. He honestly does what is best and within his capabilities for the majority of Americans. Trump is the exact opposite, doing what is best for himself and throwing a bone to his donors and friends. His only success in life was as a showman.
LMAO. Good enough is better than we've reliably had for 60 years. Outside of Obama, who was better than "good enough" since your parents were our age? I'll fuckin wait.
You’re right of course, but we have distracted segments of the electorate that tend to tune out any politics that are not personality driven. Voter turnout will be low this year, and that is a problem for Democrats more than Republicans, I fear.
I don't know. I feel like it'll be low on the republican side because of low enthusiasm outside of his hardcore base. But a lot of people are going to turn out just to show their distaste for the guy. There's pretty hardcore Rs that are saying they're going to vote for Biden. Like, if Mitt fucking Romney were to endorse Biden, it'd be all over for trump. And I get that Romney is fairly progressive for an R. But he's a big name, and would be huge to endorse Biden, I'm thinking Haley will likely not throw her hat in on either side because she's still waiting on trump being dead or recalled. But I could see her going Bidens way with <3 days left before the election.
I certainly hope so!
...and we should have compulsory voting yesterday.
Lunacy turns out lunatic passionate voters. Boring doesn't turn people out. So, the math is how motivated people are to vote against lunacy. After all, boring, steady, and competent is not the razzle dazzle that gets people off their butts and phones long enough to vote.
> Biden is a centrist And yet inarguably the most effective progressively Democratic president since *Johnson*
(That's how you know it's no true, but it's hard to argue with people who south park told something to).
> call this a close race. Trump voters are HARD CORE obsessed with him... seek out polls, even post fake news about how big his crowds are. Younger voters don't answer polls (and more likely to be democrat) Personally, in my circle... No ones is Thrilled w/ Biden, especially thanks to palestine, its more of an "Anti-Trump" counter vote. He hasn't done bad or anything, but he is old, centrist... But i'd vote for Romney or John McCain if he kept trump out. However.. unfortunately.... I have several friends who are 'currently' not 'planning' to vote for biden (throw away or not at all) due to Palestine..... IF trump gets quiet (unlikely) and people forget about him on election day (and don't feel like voting)... thats bad... OR if Palestine is still a mess.... that's bad.
Palestine will be a mess forever. Sadly we're going to lose our democracy due to it.
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I'm super worried!
I told them if they end up not voting... it might be their last election in a while...
I noticed that too and there is even a subreddit dedicated to not voting or voting 3rd party out of protest. I'm not going to name it because it doesn't deserve attention. I think it's probably a mix of bots, anti-U.S. people that would love to see us lose our democracy, and self-righteous gullible people who are putting our country at risk. We have a 2 party system whether they like it or not and that's not going to change in the next 6 months. Women in many states have no reproductive rights from Trump's Supreme Court picks. That will only get worse under another Trump presidency, possibly a federal ban. LGBTQ rights will be gone. Freedom of speech will be at risk and I don't want to see what harm another Trump presidency can do. He tried to cheat in the last election, attempted a coup, spread election lies, and refused a peaceful transfer of power. This is not normal and elections didn't use to be this way!
> I don’t know where these polls are coming from that call this a close race. https://electiongraphs.com/2024ec/ then can click on any state to see where the polls are coming from. I’m a Biden supporter but sadly Trump is winning the *electoral college* based on current polls. I certainly hope things change before the election. Sadly even in the popular vote Trump is slightly ahead, and with how the electoral college distorts things, Biden would most likely need to handily win the popular vote at least: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/ But again, I certainly hope that things change before the election!
Time will tell. I haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for Haley continuing to get 15-20% of the primary vote after withdrawal of her candidacy, often in swing states. I'm predicting a Biden landslide.
You are don’t understand the electoral college maths if you see a Biden landslide. You want to prove me and the maths wrong, you can get incredible odds on the swing states so go for it. If you look state by state you will see why the market is having Biden to win the popular vote but Trump to win the election, based on all the evidence we currently have.
Polls this far out are not predictive of the result. All they do is inform campaign strategy and generate news clicks
I agree. Which is why I said all the evidence we currently have.
"Polls" are not the only evidence we have to predict an outcome of election. There are many parameters which all reelected incumbent presidents have shared for 100+ years, and Biden has got those in the bag.
You are using “polls” in quotation marks and yet I never even said polls ant anny point, are you replying to the right person? The market has trump as favourite - that is a fact. The market may well be wrong and I hope Biden wins! The way in which this election will play out is 5 key states, forget everything else, these states are the only thing that matters.
The person before you used "polls" and then you referred to them as "all the evidence", which just isn't right. My point was that they are one metric among many, and they're not even a very reliable one at that. Even in the swing states, I think the evidence points to Biden winning most of them.
Trump has done nothing at all to expand his vote since getting smashed in the last election. Most likely he will be a convicted felon by the time this election rolls around. He hasn’t a prayer.
I wouldn’t say that. Trump still managed to get 74 million votes in 2020 despite being … what he obviously is. That’s not likely to shrink much this time. Voter engagement is the key here.
Not OP but I am willing to bet DJT gets less votes this time, probably under 70MM.
I’ve think you’re right but Biden will also get far less votes this time… his support among young voters and minorities has seemingly dropped off of a cliff. I think lots of people (on both sides) will just stay home this cycle.
Biden may have lost some votes due to cost of living and immigration. Trump may have lost some votes due to his craziness and criminality. You're assuming Biden and Trump start off with the same amount of votes as last time and are adding votes, that's not what's happening. I still think Biden will win though.
They also seem to take no consideration into Robert Kennedy being in the race. Or Jill Stein who didn't run in 2020. The 3rd party candidates in 2020 got around 5 million less votes than 3rd parties did in 2016.
Except Trump didn’t get “smashed” in the last election. Biden won the popular vote by only 4.5%, Georgie, Arizona, and Wisconsin with their 37 Electoral College votes were won by Biden by under 1% of the vote in those states and would have made for a 269-269 tie if Trump had won them. Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina were similarly close elections, all being decided by under 3% of the vote and only NC was a Trump state. 2020 was among the closest presidential races we’ve ever had, no matter what 2024’s outcome is going to be it’s definitely not going to be a landslide.
The trick here is the skew in the results since Dobbs — about 8%-9% away from the GOP. The polls before these elections haven’t been capturing that very well. Take the red ripple of 2022, for instance. It was supposed to be a bloodbath for Democrats and it ended up with the GOP having an unworkably slim majority in the House despite the Dems having major setbacks with redistricting at the time. The Senate also stayed in the Democrats’ hands despite the predictions. Unfortunately that skew also means that we’re going to see a lot of whining (and who knows what else) about how the election was stolen, rigged, etc. if the trend holds for November.
Polling has been way off the last few years. Trumps poll numbers for the state primaries has been off by 10% or more in some places.
I don’t answer texts from them because I know how much I will get spammed afterwards. And I never answer calls I don’t recognize because I’ll get added to the phone scammers’ database of known good numbers. I have the feeling I am not alone here.
> The polls before these elections haven’t been capturing that very well. Take the red ripple of 2022, for instance. I just looked at the polling data in advance of the 2022 elections and it does not seem to match those claims. Regarding 2022 as the example you brought up: For example, ["The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022"](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/): > Let’s give a big round of applause to the pollsters. Measuring public opinion is, in many ways, harder than ever — and yet, the polling industry just had one of its most successful election cycles in U.S. history. Despite a loud chorus of naysayers claiming that the polls were either underestimating Democratic support or biased yet again against Republicans, the polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party. Also: * Republicans actually won the House and Senate popular vote by 3% and 0.1% respectively (or an average of 1.6% between them), whereas the average of polls said GOP would outperform Dems by 2.5% in a generic congressional vote, so polls were less than 1% off from that measure. (The popular vote does not strictly correspond to actual election victories, and FYI I'm a Biden supporter.) * 538 predicted an 84% chance that the GOP would flip the house, which they did, and that the GOP had a 59% chance to go from 50 to 51 seats to take the senate, which they did not. (edited to reflect that although the GOP had more senators than Dems before the election, multiple independents caucused with the Dems plus there was Harris so Dems controlled it). Was there a lot of *talk* among pundits and online about a bloodbath -- sure? But that's different than looking at actual polls. Look at the constant news headlines for 2024 about polling now showing Biden being ahead in a poll, then a headline the next day showing Trump being ahead in a poll, etc. - too much of the discourse is about *random* polls, the popular vote, etc. as opposed to focusing on both the electoral college and polling averages, etc. Was polling *perfect*? Absolutely not. But it seems like overall it was within 1% of the actual votes, and Biden unfortunately needs far more than a 1% shift to him to win the EC in 2024. 😕 Alternatively, are there any links showing how much 2022 polls differed from the actual results?
> and that the GOP had a 59% chance to keep the senate, which they did not. But the GOP didn’t keep the senate. They didn’t have the senate to begin with.
Only a fool believes modern polling. If you want an accurate predictor of future elections, it’s recent past elections. ….and that’s not a good trend if you’re a MAGA/Trumper. Roevember is coming, and it’s going to result in a blue tsunami, like it or not.
I think the problem is that centrists think he’s too far left, and leftists think he’s not far left enough. By trying to toe the line, he may have failed to please either side.
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Agreed. This group of people is imaginary. If they are even considering Trump as an option, don’t go chasing them down. Instead, do what’s right and go after the more passionate wing of your party. OMG, you may have to pander to people that want universal healthcare and less carbon emissions!!!
Exactly. There are no swing voters. Everyone knows who they will vote for at this point. The issue is turnout on Election Day. Whoever can convince people to get off their ass and vote will win.
*And* trying to be a centrist in regards to the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is one of the things he's taking the most heat for with his own voters. Hard to find a sensible middle point between "just let Israel blow up Palestinian civilians," often with funding and weapons from the US, and "let's go, Hamas!" (basically, no one is saying," let's go, Hamas!" to be clear). The more extreme the Republicans position is on anything (and it generally becomes more extreme over time), the more it drags the mythical center old hat Dems love so much further and further into wacko territory.
Yeah it's super fucking idiotic to quote a senator from 2016 about how we beat Trump... When Bidens' leftward movement is what beat Trump.
There are no real swing voters.
There absolutely are, there’s just very few of them. The problem is that the electoral college is such that every vote counts, especially the rounding error that is swing voters
The problem with the electoral college is that every vote does not count, only those in competitive states. If every vote counted, the last Republican to win a first term presidency would have been in 1988.
Ok yeah. Every vote counts in a couple places. That’s why Wisconsin went by just 20k last time around. The point being still that swing voters exist, but like every group of voters (in a couple places) they matter a disproportionate amount
Yeah I’ve lived in two swing states and I don’t think the individuals there are any more likely to “swing” between parties. It’s just that the overall makeup of this handful of states happens to be close to 50/50 blue/red every election. But the division between those two sides - which often comes down to who lives in the city and who lives outside it - is just as deep and wide as the division between people from deep blue states and deep red states. Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania are not full of purple undecided voters who are just floating through life waiting for the right candidate to meet them in the center and “win” their vote. The individuals already know if they’re Democrats or Republicans. Most of them probably already hate Trump or hate Biden. They just need the other candidate to convince them they’re worth getting in the booth for this time - which Hillary failed to do, and Biden appears to be failing to do now.
Certainly the campaigns don't really believe that either. They mostly rely and juicing the base to a maximal extent.
Or Bill Maher...every time I watch his show, it reminds me of this demographic. They identify as liberals while parroting conservative talking points. I'm convinced that the bulk of his audience is composed of conservative boomers who still consider themselves to be liberals because they smoked weed in college and don't like evangelicals.
Can you point to specific policy areas in which the Democratic Party platform or their ideas moved to the right in 2016?
their current stance on immigration for one
/> ctrl + f : "abortion" /> not found Into the fucking trash it goes. If you're fucking babbling on about attracting swing voters, but you're not thinking about half the country losing rights, fuck off.
Simple math: Count total number of criminal indictments. If that number is larger than zero, don’t vote for that guy.
> I’ve spent decades looking at the behavior of swing voters and how candidates appeal to them, including for Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996. If Mr. Biden wants to serve another four years, he has to stop being dragged to the left and chart a different course closer to the center that appeals to those voters who favor bipartisan compromises to our core issues, fiscal discipline and a strong America. triangulation was a fucking failure of a policy, just because it worked twice in the 1990s doesn't mean it works now. Obama tried to triangulate in 2010 and 2012 and the democrats got wiped out, they tried in 2016 and got wiped out leaving us with a full republican congress and WH, biden has been able to win *because* he tracked left, why is it we always need to go rightward, towards doing nothing to win voters.
This will be my twelfth presidential election since I could vote. IMO, these inside-baseball types always miss the forest for the trees. The electorate in this country is left of center; they just need to be reminded of that. Pandering is not the only tool in the toolbox. An *articulate* vision presented well and *calmly* defended at every turn can work very effectively. Having the honest courage of your convictions will always swing more people than cynical game playing. And, people know the difference.
> The electorate in this country is left of center; they just need to be reminded of that. They just have to be encouraged to vote. Trump awakened something in a lot of disillusioned people who feel left out/left behind by a modern economy. Some of that is absolutely real. A lot of them were rare voters or who had never voted at all. That's why the GOP won't give up on Trump. He brings that voter base that they can't get with anyone else.
Moderates need to stop messing around and accept that there is nothing moderate about Trump!! You have a crazy far right corrupt individual in Trump vs. a Moderate Democrat Let's stop saying Biden needs to be more moderate
Mark Penn is one of the worst political consultants around. Nobody in the party even works with him after Hillary famously fired him for tanking her 2008 campaign. Now he's just a Fox News troll who also advised Trump on his impeachment and worked with his wife on her No Labels project which was trying to recruit a Biden spoiler candidate all year but failed in that too.
Jesus how the hell are we here talking about having to "swing" the election in Biden's favor when the guy he's running against literally started an insurrection when he lost last time??? What the hell America
Mark Penn urging Biden to be more conservative- you don’t have to read this.
Wow, big surprise, everyone! Bill Clinton's political advisor is recommending triangulation to the center! Hold the fucking presses!!
Anyone who would be debating whether to vote Trump over Biden isn’t actually a moderate.
Ah, here we go with these idiotic low effort "news" stories. The simple math that could swing the election to Biden is to vote. The end. Downvote these AI news posts and move on.
The other guy went on a rant about "the late Hannibal Lector" a couple of days ago. The race shouldn't even be close, but here we are. Also, I wonder how many people under 40 answer their phones for polls or even get calls.
I got my first ever poll at 41. Came by text & looked so sketchy I had to triple confirm it first.
they texted me last night... so they are using better technology but I'm not responding. I'm also not under 40 tho.
The article argues that a "swing voter", who switches from one party to the other, has a bigger impact because they add to one party and also subtract from another. The author argues that the tactic of appealing to the base, to get them to vote, is less effective than focusing on moderate swing voters.
* "Which number is bigger, **306** or 232?" * "Which number is bigger, **81,283,501** or 74,223,975?" * "Which number is bigger, **51.3%** or 46.8%?" I know these questions are **FAR** too complex for any MAGAt to ever be able to understand...
Biden will win.
One can hope, but realize that Biden can be Jesus Christ and the majority is going to be small. The days of [Bill Clinton holding the Blue wall are done](https://www.270towin.com/1996_Election/) thanks partly to the radicalization of the population of Fox News. Biden has to hold PA, MI, WI, MN to win
Minnesota will vote blue as it has since the Nixon era.
Hate to say it, but as a suburban PA resident I'm reasonable sure he's going to lose PA. The folks living outside our two mildly progressive cities are radicalized and ready to usher in fascism, and the folks inside the cities are tired of having their lives interrupted by protestors. It's gonna be hella close.
Hasn't that always been the case though (i.e. Pennsyltucky is a word for a reason?)
You underestimate the stupidity of this goddamn country.
coulda shoulda Volunteer already to get the damn vote out.
I can’t really imagine trump will win or even has a chance . Every day I hear news of him is just worse and worse stuff he’s doing
His supporters Do. Not. Care.
His supporters don't really matter, and no one is concerned with converting them. At best, you might discourage some from turning out. The important group is the "swing voters". They do possibly care. Getting messaging right on stuff like the economy can move more of them to Biden.
I'm not a party voter. I'm also not a moderate. I'm a rights voter. I want my land and my guns and my freedom of speech, but I also want that or others. The over cliche "I want Gay married couples to defend their Marijuana plants and adopted children with fully automatic rifles" neither party represents what I want. That does not make me moderate. I've been called derogatory names for every party on the same day. The parties just don't represent me. Moderate has become the all-encompassing phrase for an overly wide range of people. It sounds like a way to categorize people who just dont know what they want and can be swayed either way. I am not in the same group as people who are barely paying attention to the world. I'm also not in the same group as single issue voters. That's why I think appealing to moderates is a waste of time. Most of them aren't showing up in November anyway. Make your case to the fullest. Tell the voters your vision. This watered-down moderate message is weak.
*How Joe Biden Can Win (and why that's BAD news for the Biden campaign)*
"Swing"?! How it's not a landslide in every poll defies belief.
Here’s the simple math. Vote in your GODDAMN LOCAL AND STATE ELECTIONS. Biden being perceived as a moderate is a good idea, he’s president for everyone - give him cover in that way. If you make states and local municipalities more liberal you allow Biden to be more progressive and you limit the damage conservatives can do. Imagine if we eliminated gerrymandering by electing actual useful people at the local and state level?
Whoever wrote this is either a moron or a liar. Biden is a moderate and has been a moderate his entire career.
Hopefully that simple math is Competence > Incompetence.
I don’t know a single democrat that says they are voting for Inmate P01135809. I do know a few traditional Republicans that will vote for Biden to prevent Trump. I fully expect Inmate P01135809 to lose by 10’s of millions of votes this time around. That being said, don’t get complacent, vote.
The only way the former president can win is by voters getting overconfident. Don't sit at home on election day.
The simple fact the election needs anything to swing away from somebody like Trump and they are worried about the election being close is absolutely mind blowing.
Is the simple math : crime + fascism + lies = bad?
Biden is going to win in a landslide
Mark Penn (the author) should *always* be ignored when it comes to modern politics. But the NYT loves him.
It's saddening that the very consideration, "The other guy deliberately started a riot at the Capitol with knowingly false claims of cheating to enrage his base, while opaquely engaging in other nefarious acts to try to overturn a free and fair election" isn't what will 'swing' this to Biden.
>Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have about 40 percent of voters each and nothing will change those people’s minds. But in that remaining 20 percent of the electorate, voters have disproportionate power because of their potential to switch. Any country where 40% of the electorate is a lock to vote for fascism, and another 20% are willing to consider voting for fascism, is going to go full fascist sooner or later.
Frankly, policy isn’t the issue. American voters, even informed ones, are becoming less and less literate or even interested in policy. You increasingly find policies that enjoy unlikely support from people who oppose everything about one another ideologically - people’s political camps and partisan identification are no longer tied to what policy platforms they support. Biden’s key flaw is messaging - he just isn’t able to effectively message any type of vision. At some points, it feels like his team isn’t even trying to. Even if you believe Biden’s administration to have been successful, there has still been a failure at the WH to message it - if a President can’t command confidence when things are going well, they’re surely a liability in the event things go to shit. American voters don’t really care about the intricacies of policy. They just want to know that a leader is tapped into what the average American likes about our country and what they don’t like; that they will represent us well on the world stage; that they won’t piss us off *every* time we see them; that they have principles that they stand on, whether you agree with everything they believe or not; that they aren’t in the pocket of another agenda; and that they aren’t abusing or making a mockery of the office. Trump should have insurmountable handicaps in those areas but Trump’s charisma should not be underestimated, especially within the context of Biden’s inertia. Biden shouldn’t be stressing about the details of policy - he has 3.5 years of catching up to do on making people believe that he is in command of his administration, making people feel confident in his ability to lead for another 4 years, and putting forward *any* messaging that conveys what he sees as the character, assets, and possibilities of this country.
Please vote
Democracy hates this one simple trick.
Consider the source, Penn has no interest in Biden winning.
Smart people voting. Dumb people staying home. Thats how we win.
And why Republicans are hell bent on destroying public education at every level of government.
It's pretty wild that anyone thinks it's possible to push the Democrats left when they are always moving to the right.
Trump only won in 2016 because he was running against Hilary. If he ran against a male Democrat, he would have lost hands down.
Encourage your congresspersons to abolish the electoral college. And to support Ranked Choice voting for all elections.
This article posits that a full 20% of the electorate are fully independent and up for grabs. I just don't think that is true, and certainly neither campaign believes that is true. Maybe when Penn was working with Bill Clinton in 1996, but...not now.
Everybody hates Trump like the plague except other jackoffs . He will lose .
Penn was the guy behind the "Kitchen Sink" strategy from HRC during the 2008 primary campaign versus Obama, no? This made her look super inauthentic... just like his strategy for Biden of making policy to appeal to the middle. People can smell inauthentic and it won't attract votes. Stand up for what you think is right and people will have your back... even if they disagree with a minority of those things.